Fortune
By Judith Enck and Pamela Miller
April 24th, 2024
Delegates from 191 countries meet once again this month for the UN plastics treaty talks in Ottawa, and they need to avoid falling into industry traps that will hinder real progress. Dow chair and CEO Jim Fitterling’s recent Commentary in Fortune is a perfect example of how to ensure failure in Ottawa. If delegates commit to the priorities he outlined, they will fail to implement real solutions to the growing problem caused by his company and companies like it.
Mr. Fitterling suggests we should continue to invest in flawed systems that have failed to solve plastic pollution for decades rather than prioritizing what’s really needed to reverse this crisis: reducing plastic production and phasing out toxic chemicals.
World leaders have made similar mistakes in UN climate talks. When the latest climate talks concluded in December, stronger language calling for a phaseout of fossil fuels had been dropped, the agreement was not legally binding, and financial support for countries to move toward more renewable energy had not been addressed. Representatives of small island nations that are most at risk from rising seas said, “This process has failed us” and pointed to the “litany of loopholes” in the agreement, saying it would fail to help avoid climate catastrophe.
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